Elle Est Libre
by greeneyedandfreckled
Summary: It was her way of telling him (all of them) to let her go. / This is a modern!AU fic centered around Éponine. Rated M for suicide attempt, eating disorder, and trauma. Trigger warnings for these things as well.


**a/n: **Okay, I'm actually really proud of how this one turned out. Once again, I want to state** trigger warnings for suicide attempt, eating disorders, and trauma**. This was beta'd by the lovely Mary.

* * *

It's funny how it's not the incident itself that causes so much anguish, but the aftermath, the repercussions, the aftershocks. It's funny how, for some people, it isn't the hurt from the situation that truly breaks them, but it's the image of everyone breaking around them. It's interesting, how life plays out. Things happen and they either build people up, or tear them down.

Éponine was neither torn down nor built up by the incident. She was numbed, paralyzed in life with whatever the occurrence had let her salvage. It had left a hole in her heart (one already so tattered and worn), and it gave her wounds from which she could never recover. She had known hunger, pain, and loneliness, but never emptiness. At least, not the kind of emptiness that consumes like a void, swallowing one whole and thrusting one into proverbial nothingness (a nothingness that didn't feel so proverbial to Éponine).

It was the kind of emptiness that you lose yourself in, never again to be found.

* * *

"You think she'll be okay?" Marius asks.

"Hard to tell," Joly replies.

"She was pretty far gone," Grantaire adds.

"She's strong," Enjolras offers.

"But one can only take so much," Jehan interjects.

Doctors hustle and bustle in and out of the room. When Combeferre politely asks for an update, he is shrugged off. When Bahorel stands and demands to know how Éponine is, he is listened to.

It's amazing, the kind of power that fear can give someone.

* * *

"_Let me help you," he had asked gently._

"_I don't need it," she replied coldly._

"_You do, and you know it," he laid a hand on her shoulder._

_She shrugged it off, "I don't want it."_

_She chose pride over love every single day of the week._

* * *

"Is she awake yet?" Courfeyrac asks.

"No, she's still under," a doctor answers.

"Will she ever wake up?" asks Gavroche.

The doctor does not reply, he simply frowns and turns away.

Gavroche does not cry, but Courfeyrac has tears streaming down his face, and Gavroche decides it is he who will be strong today.

* * *

_"C'mon, Ép, you've gotta eat," her little brother whispered._

"_I'm not hungry, Gav," she sighed, taking his empty plate with her practically full one, and throwing them both away._

"_You're never hungry, Ép." He's trying so hard to be for her what she always was for him, but it's different now. Different, because it used to be that they had no food to eat. Now, they had plenty, but she wanted little._

"_What's that medicine for, Ép?" Gavroche asked (he already knew, but he wanted to hear her say it)._

"_It's supposed to make me happy," she sighed, popping a pill into her mouth._

"_Is it working?" _

"_Sure."_

_Éponine never did care for telling the truth._

* * *

The doctors only allow them in her room two at a time. Cosette strokes her cheek, and touches her lips, but Éponine doesn't feel it. She's too busy sleeping. Cosette wonders if she's dreaming about the happy things in life, or if she's living in a never-ending nightmare (not unlike the life she had lived).

She is wrong either way. Éponine is taking solace in her empty sleep. It's a different type of emptiness than the kind she had experienced in life. This emptiness does not yearn to consume her and make her disappear. It washes over her and surrounds her with warmth and comfort. For the moment, Éponine does not have to think, to feel, or to hurt.

And she is very grateful.

* * *

_It is just Bossuet's luck that he would be the one to find her._

_"911, what is your emergency?"_

_"My friend is dying, please help me."_

_"Sir, do you have an address?"_

_He sputtered out Éponine's address, and held her close as he wrapped towels around her arms and legs, trying to stop the bleeding._

_"There's so much blood."_

_"There is an ambulance on it's way. Can you stay on the line with me?"_

_"Please hurry," he whispered, because he knew Éponine would not listen to his pleas to stay with him._

_It was her way of telling him (all of them) to let her go._

* * *

They are all back in the waiting room, because none of them can bear to just watch her sleep. No laughing, no sarcastic remarks, no raunchy jokes. Just her closed eyes and still body.

A doctor comes out, and they look up.

"She's awake."

* * *

The two-people-at-a-time rule still stands, and it is Gavroche and Courfeyrac who get to see her first.

" 'Ponine!" Gavroche squeals as he runs to hug her.

"Hey," she croaks, and she gives a weak smile to Courfeyrac, who does not return it.

_How could you_, his eyes say,_ how could you try and leave us like that?_

* * *

Marius and Cosette come next, and Cosette is kissing her forehead while Marius smiles.

"I'm sorry," she says weakly. Cosette looks at her seriously.

"You're okay. That's what matters."

Is she really okay, though?

* * *

Enjolras and Grantaire come next.

"You could've called me," Grantaire says, "I understand how this -all of it- feels."

She nods, not knowing how to reply. All she can come up with is, "I'm sorry."

"Are you here to stay?" Enjolras asks her.

"I don't know," she replies, and Grantaire bows his head.

"Figure it out." Enjolras guides Grantaire up and out of the room, giving her one last glance before leaving.

"Okay," she whispers.

* * *

Bossuet comes in alone.

Before she can even begin to repeat her "I'm sorry" mantra, he's yelling at her.

"How could you do that to me?" he screams, "What if it hadn't been me, huh? What if it had been Gav?" He's shaking and he's crying, and the doctors have to escort him out because Éponine starts sobbing, too.

"I'm so sorry," she cries quietly.

* * *

They come and go as the days go on. Gavroche visits most often, accompanied by a different member of the Les Amis each day. Bossuet comes back four days after she awakes, and they talk for ages.

He will never forgive her, and Éponine will never blame him.

About a week later, Enjolras comes alone.

"Do you have an answer?" he asks her.

"An answer to what?"

"My question."

"Your question?"

"Are you going to stay?"

She sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. She looks at him weakly and tears begin to well up in her eyes.

"If you'll have me," she breathes after a while. Enjolras just looks at her for a moment, and shakes his head.

"That's your problem, Ép," he says, "You need to understand that we would never turn you away."

* * *

It is two weeks to the day after Éponine is released from the hospital.

She takes up both her and Gavroche's empty plates, and throws them away. She pops a pill in her mouth.

"What do those pills do again, 'Ponine?"

"You know what they do, Gav."

"Are they working?"

"I don't know. I think so."

Gavroche gets up from the table and wraps his arms around his older sister.

"'Ponine?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you gonna be okay?"

She pulls away from him, looks him in the eyes, and says for the first time in total honesty:

"Yes."


End file.
